Skill-Based Combat
This is an excerpt of a longer article from Storm Knights, a Torg fan site run by Jasyn Jones. The full article can be found here. The Glass-Jaw Ninja effect deals with a quirk of the Torg rules. A character with a high value in a defensive skill (such as dodge) will be missed much of the time. When hit, however, he will take a great deal of damage. : ''Example: Joe the Shocktrooper has a Dexterity of 8 and a fire combat ''of +1, making his attack skill a 9. Lou the Bruiser has a ''Dexterity of 8 and a dodge of +1, making his defense skill a 9.'' : Joe can hit Lou with any roll that gives him a +0 to his skill (just a little less than half the time). That means his pistol, which does 14 points of damage, will do at least 14 points of damage when he hits Lou (and maybe more, if he rolls better). : Lou has an associate, Jimmy the Thief. Jimmy has a ''Dexterity of 8 and a dodge of +6, making his defense skill a 14. Joe has to get a +5 to his attack skill to hit Jimmy, which happens about 15% of the time. Usually he misses, but when he does hit, he always does at least 19 points of damage to Jimmy''. To solve this, use the following very simple House Rule: an attacker’s Damage Value is increased by their attack skill adds and the defender’s Toughness is increased by their defense skill adds. : ''Example: Using this system, Joe the Shocktrooper does 15 points of damage with his pistol (the pistol’s base Damage Value of 14 plus 1 point for his 1 add in fire combat). When he hits Lou the Thug, Lou takes 14 points of damage (because his 1 point of dodge reduces the damage from 15 to 14).'' : When Joe is shooting Jimmy the Thief he needs a +5 to get past Jimmy’s defense skill value, making his Damage Value a 20. Jimmy only takes 14 points of damage, though, because he has 6 adds in ''dodge. If Joe had rolled that same +5 against Lou, Lou would have taken 19 points of damage.'' Stated more formally, the rule is: 1. Characters who attack add their skill adds in the appropriate attacking skill to the Damage Value of their weapon. (For weapons with a Max. Damage, this can exceed the Max. of the weapon.) 2. Characters who are defending (passive or active) add their skill adds in the appropriate defensive skill to Toughness. This rule only applies to combat skills: Biotech Weapons, Energy Weapons, Heavy Weapons, Fire Combat, Unarmed Combat, Melee Weapons, Missile Weapons, Dodge, Pain Weapons No other changes to current rules or combat options are necessary. For a more full discussion of the Glass-Jaw Ninja effect, and Skill-Based Combat, see the original article at Storm Knights. (The text of this article was used with permission of the copyright holder and complies with the CC-BY-SA license.) Category:House Rules